OK. Here’s what I don’t get about the latest twist in the Senate housing-expense scandal. If auditors have confirmed that Mike Duffy doesn’t live in Prince Edward Island, how can the former journalist continue to represent that province as a senator?

Let’s be clear. Duffy is an amiable fellow who was a fine reporter. As a member of the Senate’s standing committee on agriculture and forestry, he may do sterling work.

But if he doesn’t live in P.E.I., he can’t be a senator from that province. The constitution act is crystal clear on this. It says a senator must be at least 30 years old, own $4,000 worth of real estate in the province he represents and be “resident in the province for which he is appointed.”

The only senators exempt from this strict residency rule are those, like cabinet ministers, who hold government office. Such senators are allowed to reside in Ottawa regardless of which province they represent.

Auditors hired by the Senate have concluded that Duffy and two other senators — Liberal Mac Harb and Independent Patrick Brazeau — inappropriately claimed tens of thousands of dollars in housing allowances reserved for members who live more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa.

The auditors — and the Senate committee to which they reported – concluded that, in fact, Harb, Brazeau and Duffy are permanently resident in the national capital area.

Harb is safe on this count. As a senator appointed to represent Ontario, he may live anywhere in the province. The fact that he lives in Ottawa may disqualify him from receiving a housing allowance. But it does not disqualify him from sitting in the Senate.

Brazeau faces charges of sexual assault and is currently suspended from the chamber. But on the issue of residency, he appears solid. He does not live in the Repentigny district he is supposed to represent (Quebec senators, unlike their counterparts in the rest of Canada, are appointed for specific districts). However, he does at least live in Quebec.

But Duffy? It’s hard to see how he can square the residency circle.

As the Senate’s own internal economy committee found, Duffy does not hold a P.E.I. health card. He does not pay income tax to P.E.I. He spends only 30 per cent of his time in the province. How then can he be resident in P.E.I.?

And if he’s not resident in P.E.I., he cannot be a senator from that province. Indeed, the constitution act specifies that if a senator is found not to live in the province he was appointed to represent, his seat is deemed vacant,

So what to do about Mike Duffy?

First, the Senate must act. The constitution act leaves it to the Senate to deal with a member who does not meet the residency rules.

The upper house could try to finesse the problem by adopting a ludicrously lax test for residency. But it is already in bad odour with the public. Re-defining the rules in a manner that defies common sense would make the Senate even more of a mockery.

It may be that Prime Minister Stephen Harper can’t do without Duffy in the Senate. If so, he could elevate him to cabinet, which would legally permit the senator from P.E.I. to live in Ottawa.

Otherwise, the veteran journalist has a choice. He can try to hang on to his sinecure. Or he can accept what he should have acknowledged four years ago when Harper offered him the Senate job.

Mike Duffy came from P.E.I. It is a heritage of which he is justly proud. He vacations on the island. But he doesn’t really live there any more. And because of that, he cannot — by law — represent P.E.I. in the Senate.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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